Monday, December 31, 2012

Bloodblind is the first in a trilogy that pulls the reader in with a unique, evocative and powerful voice. The suspense is reminiscent of a classic Hitchcock film. And the journey the reader takes—an existential transcendence that continuously evolves—would make Carlos Castaneda proud. Koloski’s expansive imagination evolves the concept of empathic vampires which gives the reader believable and, at times, horrific territory. Another pleasant surprise that plucks at our emotions and gives life to the characters.We find Adam as a struggling artist at an event showcasing his latest work. After a friend asks him to accompany her for a ride in her corvette through the rain, Adam’s life is changed forever. He awakes from the accident alive, but blinded. Koloski places the reader in that headspace with effortless grace and ease. He’s being hunted, and he doesn’t even know it…yet. Despite his challenges, Adam is getting along fine: he’s a Dee jay at a local radio station, and has a loving brother who looks after him. While at work, Adam receives a very odd song request which turns into an even stranger proposition: a possible cure for blindness. But no one in the studio could hear the woman’s voice but Adam. He accepts the invitation to meet her, and is told there is a cure…if he agrees to take an experimental drug. Adam can’t seem to put the doctor’s braille business card down, nor the urge to call her and accept. What ensues is a fast-paced journey that ensnares the reader as the plot delves so far that it challenges the very fabric of reality. Adam is introduced to new, exciting worlds with almost limitless possibilities. However, what unintended consequences await every decision he makes to heal himself and protect those he loves? And more importantly, who is on the hunt for him and willing to burn everything that stands in their way? Other realities and dimensions await Adam, and everyone he loves, as he falls further down the rabbit hole. Bloodblind is a breath of fresh air amidst a sea of modernity and convention--an original work that refuses to let go. Prepare to have your imagination taken to places only the author can take you. Koloski boldly steps on the stage with this new and impressive offering.

Ben Eads is a dark fiction author of short stories
and longer fiction. His work tends to represent modern horror coupled with what
he likes to call: “Imagination-tickling elements”. Ben is also a huge fan of
dark fiction and dark movies. At the age of ten he wrote his first story. Taking
writing seriously in early 2008, Ben Eads has published numerous short dark
fiction stories in various magazines, anthologies, and
E-Zines.

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Every House is Haunted by Ian Rogers is nothing less than a brilliant short story collection, exploring the area between the world we know and the supernatural—and how deceptively close the two are. It’s been a long time since this reviewer has read anything remotely comparable; and that which was had sprung from the pens of Shirley Jackson, Ray Bradbury, and Richard Matheson--with a little Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft thrown in for good measure.

The book’s organization is interesting, too. The reader is taken, via the stories, on a trip through a house. One begins in the Vestibule (including creepy photographs by Samantha Beiko), then on to the Library, the Attic, the Den, and finally, the Cellar—the usual locations for odd happenings in a haunted house.

Every single story in this 300-page volume is a stand-out—so much so that it is impossible to choose a favorite. Or even several favorites. They all strongly remain with the reader days after turning the final page.

Rogers writes with all his senses, and his characters are deftly developed with an economy of language that is rare these days. One feels as if one knew every single one of them. This reader smelled, tasted, touched, saw and heard every nuance…every subtlety. Amazing.

There are also no weaknesses apparent to point out in this work. It’s the strongest collection of short stories this reviewer has ever read—and though usually not one given to hyperbole, an exception must be made in this case.

Here is a little taste of the literary banquet you will indulge in should you read this masterful work:

"THE NANNY": A kindly woman who does so much more for the children than any nanny every thought of.

"ACES": Death and misfortune seem to following the wake of Soelle—a girl with a penchant for tarot cards and puzzles.

"WINTER HAMMOCK": A tale H.P. Lovecraft would have been proud to call his own.

"THE DARK AND THE YOUNG": When experimentation with an ancient book spirals out of control.

I am so brief with these descriptions because I don’t want to spoil this for anyone.I urge you to buy Every House is Haunted. Read this book. Buy one for yourself and one to give as a Christmas gift to your favorite horror fan.You’ll thank me.

Monday, December 3, 2012

An artifact, closely guarded by the Navajo mystics for ages is stolen by an unscrupulous psychopath, Max, who is prepared to use it to create a zombie, Earl Manning, to do his bidding, and as long as Max has the stone, and Earl’s heart right next to it, he will control the Earl. But due to some messy unforeseen circumstances, the box with heart and stone winds up in Earl’s hands. He is suddenly the master of his undead destiny, and havoc ensues.

This second book in his series of Paskagankee novels, Allan Leverone’s Revenant, is a page turner, and could almost be considered an homage to Stephen King, so closely does Leverone’s writing style mimic the master’s. The book even takes place in Maine—not Derry, though; but in a town called Paskagankee.

My favorite character was actually Earl Manning, the revenant. I found it fascinating that he was pretty much a brain-dead zombie to begin with, what with an alcohol-pickled brain at the age of 29. Becoming a zombie wasn’t much of a transition for him—this was probably why he handled it so well. You’ll want to read this book just for this character alone—he was the best developed and the most interesting. Instead of the zombies running wild and the focus narrowly placed on the humans who are either chasing them or running away from them; it evolves into the Earl’s, story. A nice switch.

Leverone handles suspense well, and though initially I was disappointed about the overused cliché of yet another zombie novel, I was pleasantly surprised about the original and deft way the concept was handled.

Though I enjoyed the book from start to finish and was sorry when it ended, there were a few weaknesses that I must mention. I felt that the protagonists, Chief Mike McMahon and Constable Sharon Dupont suffered from lack of character development, and consequently came off as a bit two-dimensional. I didn’t care as much about them as I should have, and this caused the ending to fall a tad flat for me.

I also could have done without the frequent callbacks to the first volume of this series, Paskagankee. They were slightly jarring and completely unnecessary. This book was more than able to stand alone and should have been allowed to.

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Before we get this under way, it is definitely worth warning you that I am not in any way a fan of either Hard or Military Sci-Fi. As far as I am concerned, they both tend to be overloaded with information that gets in the way of the story, instead of aiding it. I know that there are people out there who are highly interested in the intricacies of propulsion units and methodology as well as tactical data, but I am not one of those. I want the story itself and any information pertinent to that story or an understanding of its characters and the world they live in but anything more bores me. Please keep that in mind as it is something that highly flavors this review.

Way off in the far-flung future, people have begun colonizing the stars. One of those colonies, Bloodworld, was founded by a group whose desire to suffer for the sins of humanity found an ideal home on its brutal terrain. They’ve lived there for decades, alone and isolated and content with both. However, a war-bound race of aliens, the Qesh, have found them. Not only is their own safety at stake, but the security of Earth and any other human colonies. Enter space marines and combat galore.

Let’s start off with the good things here: I very much enjoyed seeing war from the point of view of a Corpsman (the closest layman's term would be a field medic, but it would not be entirely accurate), someone whose primary concern is healing over harming. This alone tossed much of the over the top, “we kick ass” attitude out the window. And, Ian presents us with a much more likely view of humanity’s early forays into space: tentative and frightful. This is a future where humanity knows that they are outnumbered and outgunned by older, larger and more strategically powerful races in space and are doing everything they can to stay below the radar. The main character is well developed and there isn’t the usual good versus evil delineation so much as a concern for the people he is with.

All of these things are great. I loved the story itself. When I got to read it.

Unfortunately, most of the time was spent buried under paragraphs and piles of text dedicated to the history of Corpsmen. The changes in medical engineering. Every detail of how each specific bit of nano-technology worked. The operating principles of the weapons systems. Military tactics out the wasoo. Over 150 pages had passed before Bloodworld was reached it still took a bit of discussion of nano-flage and nano-grown encampments before much else occurred.

I can’t stress enough how much I enjoyed the story at the heart of this novel, but I could not find it in myself to enjoy the novel as a whole.

Anton Cancre is one of those rotting, pus-filled thingies on the underside of humanity that your mother always warned you about. He has oozed symbolic word-farms onto the pages of Shroud, Sex and Murder and Necrotic Tissue magazines as well as THE GHOST IS THE MACHINE, a steampunk ghost anthology by Permuted Press, and continues to vomit his oh-so-astute literary opinions, random thoughts and nonsense at antoncancre.blogspot.com. No, he won't babysit your pet shoggoth this weekend. Stop asking.

Sunday, November 4, 2012

Welcome
To Moon Hill is an intriguing collection of short fiction based
in the mythic town of Moon Hill. The alluring stories that comprise
the collection are unique as the town itself: dark, suspenseful, and
most of all, enticing. The author gives us well-written,
tightly-woven stories that touch upon myriads of emotions. Stand outs
are:

“From
Your Body They Rise”, is a surreal and haunting tale of curiosity
and the wonderment of discovery. Alan discovers a peculiar “plant”
that would make him a legend in science, and re-define physics. As
the journey grows, so do the stakes. With a suspense that is
palpable, the author weaves the reader into the tale white-knuckled,
with effortless grace and ease.

“Hair
of The Dog”, Poor, John. Some guys just can’t get a break. He
gets the courage up to ask the girl at the local coffee shop out, and
she rejects him. A bit worse, actually. She simply states that he is
“dark and depressing.” He walks out and goes in search of another
java-joint. However, his options may be limited. This one is short,
sweet and best of all, hilarious.

“And
The Drums Went Thump Thump Thump”, is a somber, heart-felt tale of
the struggles single parents face. John is trying his best with his
teenage, death-metal loving daughter, Ashley. John decides to open a
door into her world, her life. Perhaps with some renewed insight, he
can understand her gruff exterior. A pair of street thugs would like
to do the same as well. Can John put the bottle down and finally
stand up?

“Struck
By Golden Lightning”, Ewan has the mind of a child. Despite some of
his neighbors understanding this, others are more reluctant to have
their children play with him. This touching, fantastical tale
explores family, friends—tolerance vs. intolerance—and the belief
that anything is possible. Soon, perhaps, everyone will see just how
special Ewan actually is.

There
are a lot of books and collections that have a foreboding town, or
dwelling where bad things happen. It is a tradition and staple in
horror that we all love. However, Welcome to Moon Hill shines
with tales that horrify, yet hook our imaginations in a unique way as
well. We find ourselves standing in synch with these characters that
are on the brink of new worlds and answers, or oblivion and its sweet
embrace. But for the life of us, our curiosity always gets the best
of us…no matter the outcome.

Ben
Eads is a dark fiction author of short stories and longer fiction.
His work tends to represent modern horror coupled with what he likes
to call: “Imagination-tickling elements”. Ben is also a huge fan
of dark fiction and dark movies. At the age of ten he wrote his first
story. Taking writing seriously in early 2008, Ben Eads has published
numerous short dark fiction stories in various magazines,
anthologies, and E-Zines.

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Rasputin's
Bastards by David Nickle is first and
foremost a spy novel; and reader take note, this is a book that
expects its reader to be a clever as the spies whom the story
revolves around.

David
Nickle describes an intricate plot with a baker's dozen of
multifaceted characters, and it's a challenge to keep up with each
individual and their separate motivations – in some cases, the
characters themselves are not self-aware enough to understand their
circumstances, and circumstances are subject to change. The reader
must contend with the real world and juggle complicated metaphysical
ideas involved behind the “sleeper” agents who, to reduce the
idea to its basic concept, are “possessing” the bodies of other
characters to carry out their goals. Add to the mix a gathering of
psychic children and a telepathic infant and the complexity of
Rasputin's Bastards
multiplies.

The
writing is good but this isn't a place for the beach-read pulp
fiction crowd, and having an understanding of past spy novels (The
Marathon Man by William Goldman comes to mind) is
essential to appreciate what David Nickle is building, and the style
he chooses to do it in.

A
reader will either love it or hate it; one must keep note of the
characters and their subplots while tracking the greater plot
unfolding and it's not an easy job to jack-hop from one character's
psychological state to another. Nickle gives nothing away to the
reader for free, which lends the benefit of surprise when characters
end up in unexpected places and are revealed to be different people
than they started out as.

All
in all, this is a read more suited to specific audience who has an
interest in the genre of spy thrillers, with a dash of the
supernatural.

Zippered
Flesh is an anthology of twenty tales of body enhancements gone
wrong—and not “gone wrong” like Joan Rivers or Sly
Stallone—we’re talking a birthday party in the cemetery degree of
“gone wrong.”

The
real standouts of the collection were the following:

"Comfort"
by Charles Colyott – We are endlessly both fascinated and repulsed
by morbid obesity, and this story is one of the best in the book.
Deftly written, we find a son trying to care for his huge mother on
his own and will not hear of putting her into a home—shades of
Gilbert Grape. This jeopardizes both his marriage and his job, but a
mama’s boy is a mama’s boy. The ending packs a punch that you’ll
be thinking about hours later.

"The
Shaping" by Scott Nicholson – My favorite of the entire collection,
this story gives teeth to the idea that great artists and writers
pour their blood, sweat and tears into their work in order to be
creatively effective. This story is a little bit Logan’s
Run,” a little bit “X-Factor”
and a whole lot of shock at the way competition within the arts is
addressed. If you’re a creative individual, you’ll understand;
but even if you’re not, you’ll enjoy the insight.

"Something
Borrowed" by J. Gregory Smith – A story of abduction, surgery and a
conscience grown just a little too late.

"Sex
Object" by Graham Masterton – This would have been a better story to
open the anthology with, as horrifying as it is. It’s about a
trophy wife taking steps to ensure that her easily bored husband will
not throw her over for a newer model. You’ll have nightmares about
this one, but little sympathy for any of the characters.

"Locks
of Loathe" by Jezzy Wolfe – In opting for an illegal correction of
lifelong alopecia, a woman learns that there are some scary
consequences to taking things that do not belong to you. Wonderful
story.

"Hearing
Mildred" by Weldon Burge – I enjoyed this story because it’s the
only one in the anthology with a dark sense of humor. An aging
gentleman has recently lost his wife. He has small desires as to how
to spend the balance of it—all he wants to do is watch television,
and now he can do it without having to deal with an endless “Honey
Do” list. But when his hearing aids start acting up, he discovers
that silence really is golden and hearing is not all it’s cracked
up to be.

That’s
it. Only six standouts—in an anthology of twenty. There were
other tales that were enjoyable to read but didn’t stay with me
after I’d read them, and a few that the anthology could have done
without entirely.

That
being said, this is a first book release from this new press, Smart
Rhino and there will inevitably be growing pains, which will include
missed typos, commas, and that sort of thing. This is forgivable as
long as it is not rampant—and it’s not.

What
I have a harder time with is writers who are lazy about fact
checking. One notable example in one of the stories is a pirate, at
sea, referring to lines as “ropes.” “Rope” is a landlubber
term. This may seem like a small thing, but to the many readers who
have spent time on the ocean, it is a glaring error.

Monday, July 30, 2012

When
I read the jacket blurb on this book, I must admit to no little
excitement on my part.

“As
a faithful Mormon, Soren Johansson has always believed he’ll be
reunited with his loved ones in an eternal hereafter. Then he dies.
Soren wakes to find himself cast by a God he has never heard of into
a Hell whose dimensions he can barely grasp: a vast library he can
only escape from by finding the book that contains the story of his
life.”

A
great idea, right?

The
answer is a resounding yes—it is a great idea. Unfortunately,
it was an idea that, to me, really didn’t go anywhere after the
initial “great idea” glow subsided.

In
Peck’s novella, we discover that the only true religion (which, of
course, nobody realized), is Zoroastrianism, and anyone not
following this faith is given an express pass to Hell. The premise
is fine, but it might have been nice if the author had given the
reader more of a clue about what Zoroastrianism was about. We learn
more about Mormonism than the “one true religion.”

Once
our hero finds himself in Hell’s library, he realizes that finding
his life story isn’t going to be easy, or particularly pleasant.
To those of us who are readers, spending hundreds of years in a
library sounds more like Heaven than Hell; but most of the books in
this library don’t make any sense. They are filled with gibberish,
with only the occasional book containing even one readable phrase.
Finding the book containing his life’s story is pretty much out of
the question, and that is where the Hell comes in. The dimensions of
the library are beyond imagining, and Peck does a good job conveying
the vastness of the place.

The
major problem with this novella is that it is monotonous—but
existential philosophy, when applied to a work of fiction, usually is
unless it is handled deftly. I realize that the author is attempting
to convey the monotony as one of Hell’s many tortures, but making
the reader suffer it is not the best way to do that and keep one’s
readership.

Additionally,
the protagonist, Soren, does not change or grow, which makes the
story somewhat pointless. There is little that is remotely
interesting about him—certainly not enough for this reader to be
pulling for him in his quest. Creating characters that bore us to
the point where we care little about what happens to them is
tantamount to opening up a femoral artery where exemplary fiction
writing is concerned.

I
wish I had more good things to say about A SHORT STAY IN HELL. I
opened this book really wanting to like it and came away
disappointed.

Friday, July 20, 2012

Continuing Samhain Horror's line of re-printed Ramsey Campbell novels is "Obsession", a novel hinging on one of the most classic of all cautionary themes, be careful what you wish for...you may just get it. In this novel, half-hearted, juvenile wishes are granted in horrible, unimaginable ways, but - as always in these tales - there's a price to pay. A terrible one, which is visited years down the road, after the wishes have long been forgotten.

A group of friends are faced with a fantastic, impossible scenario: wishing away their adolescent problems. Peter's grandmother has recently moved in, changing he and his family's way of life. Jimmy's father is forever throwing money away at the horse races, even as their little family-run cafe is failing. Steve - a budding communist - faces persecution at school from a teacher because of his beliefs. And Robin's single mother must constantly deal with sexual harassment in the workplace.

These are problems of life. And like all problems, there are no easy answers. Or are there? Because one day, Peter receives in the mail a form and a very simple letter reading the following:

Whatever you most need, I do. The price is something that you do not value and which you may regain.

Thinking the whole matter a hoax, the four friends fill out their forms and make their wishes on a bluff overlooking the coast. However, at an inopportune - and eerie - moment, the forms are all torn from their grasps by the wind and blown out to sea, and they are quick to chalk the whole thing up to exactly what they'd imagined it to be: a prank.

But the wishes come true. In some ways horrible, in others unexpected, but looming behind them all is the second stipulation of the letter: the price. But of course they are children, flexible and adaptable and very willing to forget, which is exactly what they do. Forget, separate, grow up and live their own lives. And, really - could the price be so bad? Especially considering that it would be something that they "do not value"?

However, twenty-five years later, they realize a terrifying truth: that what they value NOW very likely was something they did NOT value when they made the pact. So what they'd have no fear of losing as adolescents...may now be the most important things to them.

As always, Campbell mines feelings and emotions from the deep well of the human condition. And, especially in this work, his supernatural touch is very light. It's there, in the letters and some hauntings, but so much of this novel is about the characters themselves: how their lives may or may not have turned out how they wanted, (Peter's dull, bland life), how they deal with tragedy, (Jimmy's wife's death), adversity, (Steve's marital problems) and illness (Robin's mother slipping deeper into dementia and Alzheimer's). The real horror in this novel is life and mistakes and failure and desperation, which very much lift it above normal horror fare.

Kevin Lucia is a Contributing Editor for Shroud Magazine, a blogger for The Midnight Diner, and a podcaster at Tales to Terrify. His short fiction has appeared in several anthologies. He's
currently finishing his Creative Writing Masters Degree at
Binghamton University, he teaches high school English and lives
in Castle Creek, New York with his wife and children. He is
the author of Hiram Grange & The Chosen One, Book Four of The Hiram Grange Chronicles, and he's currently working on his first novel. Visit him on the web at www.kevinlucia.com.

Friday, July 13, 2012

Mike Duran's second novel "The Telling" is an intelligent, well-written thriller about the consequences of ignoring one's calling in the midst of a struggle between good and evil. In some ways reminiscent of Robert McCammon's "Mystery Walk", Duran pens a much darker, more intriguing tale than his also well-written - but somewhat standard - debut novel, "The Resurrection."

In his second outing, Duran serves up plentiful portions of the "weird" and "fantastic" with ancient prophecies, body-snatching demons, quantum physics, parallel dimensions, a burned-out prophet, covert government military experiments and a possibly immortal holy warrior. All centered around a portal to hell, whose opening is imminent.

Once, Zephaniah Walker had a calling. The Voice of God spoke to him, giving him words of encouragement AND chastisement for the faithful. Hundreds flocked to his gatherings, making him a near-celebrity on the revival circuit. But eventually, the continual pressure of having to "perform" on a regular basis - whether he'd received God's Word or not - wears upon Zephaniah. He's only a child, after all. Driven by a zealous, perhaps slightly unbalanced mother determined to keep her gifted boy on his "chosen path".

But his mother dies. His father remarries, they leave the revival circuit behind...and at the hands of his abusive, psychotic step-mother, Zephaniah loses what little faith he has left, loses his way, also. He grows into Zeph Walker, a recluse living on the edge of the desert, near Death Valley, wanting nothing more than to be left alone and forgotten.

But ancient prophecies heed the wishes of no man, not even a burned-out former prophet. Forces far above Zeph still have plans for him, for a rising evil - leaking out from the bowels of Hell itself - is slowly infiltrating the citizens of Endurance. Dark magics, quantum physics, secret government projects collide in a foolhardy attempt to open a portal to Hell. According to an ancient prophecy, only one man can stop it - a man gifted with divine Speech - except there's one problem.

He's no longer talking. Or listening. And he just wants to be left alone. But he finds that impossible, especially when the evil threatening him wears his face.

Consummate blogger and writer Mike Duran has crafted a rich tale tale that mixes and matches its elements, a true genre-blend. There's horror, quantum physics, folk-lore, allegory, secret-government projects, demonic invasion - you name it, it's in there. Published in the Christian Bookseller Association, the story is faith-driven, but by no means agenda-driven, which makes all the difference in the world. It's above-all an excellent, enjoyable story about a broken man coming to terms with himself and his destiny. That, and an impending, demonic invasion from Hell, of course.

One of the most enjoyable characters, however, isn't necessarily the main character but Little Weaver. Indian mystic, angel, immortal guardian of the portal to hell - his character is never fully explained, which is a good thing. Excellent writers don't need to fill in all the blanks for us, not when a character has been so fleshed out and realized. Duran does this here, which only strengthens his tale.

Kevin Lucia is a Contributing Editor for Shroud Magazine, a blogger for The Midnight Diner, and a podcaster at Tales to Terrify. His short fiction has appeared in several anthologies. He's
currently finishing his Creative Writing Masters Degree at
Binghamton University, he teaches high school English and lives
in Castle Creek, New York with his wife and children. He is
the author of Hiram Grange & The Chosen One, Book Four of The Hiram Grange Chronicles, and he's currently working on his first novel. Visit him on the web at www.kevinlucia.com.

Thursday, July 5, 2012

***BLACKOUT
is the third book in a trilogy that builds heavily upon itself.
Because of that, there is no way that I can talk about this work
without spoiling several key events of the previous books. It isn’t
designed in a way that you would enjoy it without reading both of
those first anyways, so start there. We’ve got reviews of both FEED
and DEADLINE to check out in the meantime.***

Here
it is people, the one you’ve been waiting for. Our oldest got us
all excited, the middle kid left us agitated and confused and this
one is supposed to wrap it all up. This is the point where Newsflesh
will either be remembered as a great trilogy in a sea of limp,
processed zombie crap or it will just leave us all pissed off for
getting us so worked up. Does it satisfy?

Yes.
Go buy it if you don’t already have a half-devoured copy on your
bookshelf.

You
want details before you blindly follow my orders? Fine. The
conspiracy that overran the Ryman presidential campaign, leveled
Oakland and left the team at After the End Times with too many
corpses in their wake has only gotten broader. The heads of AtET are
all hunted fugitives hiding out with a mad scientist. Florida has
been lost completely, due to a surprise insect vector of
Kellis-Amberlee, just in time to distract from the raid on the CDC.
People with reservoir conditions are being killed off because they
carry a possible immunity to the disease. And they’ve brought
Georgia back as a clone?

That
last bit had me worried, since it smacked of a cheap way to bring
back a beloved character, but her resurrection is integral to the
larger issue of criminal misuse of science for the purpose of
maintaining control. Sure, we do get a nice comfy feeling having good
old George back but we also know enough not to trust it in the hands
of an author who has made it perfectly clear that she won’t treat
us with kid gloves. Her presence, and the reason for it, alters the
path of events in integral and powerful ways that certainly calmed my
initial qualms.

Overall,
the dangers compound, hope rises and gets smashed against the ground,
the stakes escalate and the conspiracy we’ve been following
deepens. Yet, through it all, Mira maintains the sense of regular
people unwittingly and unwillingly thrust into desperate times and
situations determined to do what’s right, even when they don’t
necessarily know what the right thing to do is, or how to do it.
They’re not special, just schleps who want the truth to be heard.

And
damn do I love those schleps. I can’t gush enough over how
comforting it was to settle back into this crew of crazy people.
Shaun’s headlong rush for vengeance and crazy discussions with the
dead sister living in his head. Becks’ anger and pure sincerity.
Mahir’s dry and incredibly British sense of humor. Maggie’s
energy. Aleric being an asshole. They feel like friends I never got
to meet in person and I still enjoyed getting a chance to sit in
their heads while the world crumbled around them.

Now,
those expecting a denouement to the grand, global issues revolving
around the Masons and their fellow newsies may find themselves a bit
disappointed. Changes and resolutions are moved toward, but we don’t
get to see the long term effect of them, so we don’t know how it
truly works out. However, in my mind at least, this was never a story
about those issues so much as how these people dealt with them. In
that, we do reach a very satisfying conclusion that wrapped up their
stories quite well. However, I am biting my tongue about a certain
revelation that I didn’t think was necessary, except to give a
romantic edge to the story that wasn’t really needed and made it a
bit creepy.

All
in all, this is a great last third to the Newsflesh story that
manages to keep the focus clearly on the characters while still
revealing incredible and frightening things about both their world
and ours.

Anton Cancre is one of those rotting,
pus-filled thingies on the underside of humanity that your mother
always warned you about. He has oozed symbolic word-farms onto the
pages of Shroud, Sex and Murder and Horrorbound magazines as well as
The Terror at Miskatonic Falls, an upcoming poetry anthology by
Shroud Publishing and continues to vomit his oh-so-astute literary
opinions, random thoughts and nonsense at antoncancre.blogspot.com.
No, he won't babysit you pet shoggoth this weekend. Stop asking.

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Continuing Samhain Horror's line of reprinted Ramsey Campbell's novels is "The Hungry Moon", an eerie tale about a small England village besieged first by rabid Christian Evangelicals and then the dark, pagan, moon-worshiping force they accidentally awaken.

For the most part a smart story offering acute observations on the dangers of religious fanaticism, Campbell's usually suspenseful "quiet horror" does drag a little towards the end. Taken as a whole, however, Campbell delivers the goods, as always: poignant characterization, sterling craft, creeping dread, and unsettling unease.

Godwin Mann (yes, read that as God - Win - Man) is on a quest to win souls for God. Embarrassed by his father's B-Movie horror past (Dad played the Devil once in a film), Godwin experiences a life-changing "conversion" and becomes a self-styled version of Billy Graham, leading crusades and marches and rallies, all to advance the Good News. And he's come to England's shores to continue God's Good Work. He's come to the small town of Moonwell to rid it of its "pagan past", to "win the town for the Lord."

And initially, he and his troupe of believers find a foothold in Moonwell. A moderately Christian town paradoxically proud of its Druid traditions, Moonwell's Christian residents see Godwinn's arrival almost akin to their own Second Coming, a chance to "purify" Moonwell of its pagan influences, once and for all. Battle lines are drawn, friend turned against friend, families divided. All in the name of Godwinn Man's "holy quest".

But when Mann confronts the source of Moonwell's Druid traditions (a deep cave in which legends say Old Beings dwell), he returns....changed. No longer human, Godwin Mann uses his influence and newly "won" town to unleash an unspeakable darkness. Night falls...and stays. Daily deliveries - even the newspaper - from the outside world cease. No one can leave. No one can enter from outside Moonwell, as the demon that is now Godwin Mann slowly erases Moonwell, cutting it off from the rest of the world, hiding it in a perpetual night lit only by a strange, bloated moon.

And this moon is hungry. And angry, for being ignored all these years.

As always, you get what you expect in a Ramsey Campbell novel: smooth, flowing prose, deep characters, subtle emotional plays, and a lingering dread that settles right at the base of the neck. In this case, perhaps "The Hungry Moon" runs a little too long. The darkness settles around town very early, and readers can also guess pretty quickly what's happened to Mann.

However, this novel's strength lies not in it's plot, necessarily, but in character development, as religious fanaticism not only tears the town apart, but ultimately leaves Moonwell completely vulnerable to the demon-possessed Godwin Mann. That's where this novel's real power comes from, in Campbell's portrayal of friends and family torn apart by the Lord's "Good News."

Kevin Lucia is a Contributing Editor for Shroud Magazine, a blogger for The Midnight Diner, and a podcaster at Tales to Terrify. His short fiction has appeared in several anthologies. He's
currently finishing his Creative Writing Masters Degree at
Binghamton University, he teaches high school English and lives
in Castle Creek, New York with his wife and children. He is
the author of Hiram Grange & The Chosen One, Book Four of The Hiram Grange Chronicles, and he's currently working on his first novel. Visit him on the web at www.kevinlucia.com.

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Normally,
I'd start off with some kind of hook, a generalized statement that
ties into my feelings about the book being reviewed. Summary. A well
reasoned list of pro's and con's. Professional and clean, if a bit self-conscious at times.

That's
not what you're getting today, because this isn't that kind of book.

The
back flap breakdown would have you believe that this is a story of a
man forced to return home to a broken family of crooks and thieves.
Faced with the brutality of his brother's murder spree, he's been
asked to find the killer of the one person his brother didn't kill. A
murder mystery wrapped in the barbs of crime fiction curled in the
velvet black drapes of noir.

But
that is also not what you are getting today, because it isn't that
type of book.

It's
not really about any of those things, at least not to me. To me, this
is a tale of the sicknesses and sins floating in blood, embedded in
flesh. It's about a man's struggle to find out if he is bound to the
same fate as his family, if genetics, like anatomy, is truly destiny.
The murderous brother who went mad dog one night and killed an old
woman, a family of five (their little daughter included). The history
of graft and theft running generations deep. The dementia whose roots
have all but mushed the brains of the family's eldest and have begun
to worm their way into the younger ones as well. These things that
our dear, humble narrator wants so desperately to believe he can
extricate himself from but fears with just as much certainty that he
cannot escape.

It
says so much about the effect of Piccirilli's writing on me that I
cannot remove myself from it, that I can only speak of it in terms of
myself. That's why I, quite frankly, ride his nuts as if they are my
favorite stallion. His writing is always so intensely personal, that
it becomes personal to me. Here is this man whom I have never met,
who knows nothing about me, yet whose words seem to understand the
deepest fears and hopes bursting inside of me.

Its
a bit scary, really.

I'll
just end with saying that The Last Kind Words resonates
against my own experiences in ways I don't care to share with
strangers, but it's there all the same. There will be those of you
put off by the first person narration and the somewhat overwrought
and bruise-purple prose but my own experience was sublime in the truest,
most Longinus(ian?) sense of the word.

Anton Cancre is one of those rotting,
pus-filled thingies on the underside of humanity that your mother
always warned you about. He has oozed symbolic word-farms onto the
pages of Shroud, Sex and Murder and Horrorbound magazines as well as
The Terror at Miskatonic Falls, an upcoming poetry anthology by
Shroud Publishing and continues to vomit his oh-so-astute literary
opinions, random thoughts and nonsense at antoncancre.blogspot.com.
No, he won't babysit you pet shoggoth this weekend. Stop asking.

Monday, June 11, 2012

“One missing pumpkin certainly did
not qualify as a visit from the Pumpkin Thief. But it was kind of
cool, getting all worked up the night before the holiday, a special
holiday devoted to celebrating evil and dead things.”

Nick seems like a pretty typical
seventeen-year-old. He has a lot of trouble with the girls at school,
just as much trouble with the bullies, and an annoying younger
sister. He also has a fascination with mystery stories and hopes to
some day become a detective. It’s his detective-like curiosity that
leads Nick to do a little investigation of a local legend called the
Pumpkin Thief. It all starts when the jack-o-lantern that Nick’s
family had sitting on the porch steps disappears. Nick finds a paper
written by a former student at his school and reads about a supposed
creature that steals pumpkins throughout an entire neighborhood in
order to really mess around with things and invite evil into the
town. According to the legend, nobody knows where the Pumpkin Thief
will strike, though the time is always around Halloween...

Nick doesn’t quite believe everything
he reads at first. He has enough to worry about between all of the
issues at school and outside of school. Lou, Nick’s archenemy,
never seems to want to leave the kid alone, and he is completely
outmatched in a fight. But when the Pumpkin Thief actually appears in
the town these kids live in, there’s no better equalizer than fear.

The Legend of the Pumpkin Thief is a
horror book that is written very well for its intended audience in
the Young Adult crowd. One of its biggest strengths is surely the
verisimilitude of high school life. It’s great that the book
actually doesn’t get too bogged down in the buildup to the spooky
climactic scenes; everything about Nick’s life has a chance to be
fleshed out. Charles Day’s tale is just as much about being a
seventeen-year-old kid with dreams as it is about horrifying
creatures intent on the destruction of mankind, and that is what
really makes the book in the end. The Pumpkin Thief himself is at
first a complete mystery, but when he reveals himself his impact is
felt in many ways. He really is a threat to the kids and everyone
else in Nick’s town and they have to work together to get rid of
the evil spirit.

This is a book that is a quick and
enjoyable read for adults but might be just a little more
entertaining for an audience that skews on the young side. Get it as
a gift for the teenager who likes mysteries or a little Halloween
spook.

Christopher Larochelle is buried under a huge pile of comics. At least that's his excuse for not updating his blog (where he used to write about them from time to time): www.clarocomics.blogspot.com. Visit it and encourage him to get back to updating.

As
a species, we are born hunters. No matter how removed from our
distant past we may get, buying slabs of neatly packaged and
processed meat from brightly lit coolers at the local grocery store,
the genetic memory is still buried somewhere deep in our subconscious.
That need to pounce and destroy. To feel the sweet, tangy taste of
blood dripping down out throat. At the very least, to avoid being
eaten ourselves. The stories in Hunter’s Moon deal with that
relationship of predator and prey, approaching it in ways that are
sometimes surprising and often quite entertaining.

The
best stories in this collection showcase R Scott McCoy’s more
playful side. “Jihad” is a great example of this, placing
the reader in the head of a man obsessed with destroying the rodents
that have overrun his house. Certainly, the analytic in me loves that
I was never sure what was real and what was purely a figment of the
protagonist’s growing psychosis but then he hit me with this: “I’m
not leaving my post, Steve. If I do, this position will be overrun.
If you want to help, bring me more peanut butter for the traps.” If
you didn’t fall in love with that line, I’m not talking to you
any more.

I
could go on, with stories like “Bitch Queen” (kegel enhanced
coochie and all), “Garbage Man” (always use a full sized
portrait) and “The Find” (bigfoot-‘nuff said) but you get the
point: McCoy knows how to tell a tale that is just downright fun. At the same time, his knack for building honest and true
feeling characters gives the more serious tales like the heartfelt
“The Last Line” and damn angry “Best Served Cold” the punch
they need to truly hit home.

Unfortunately,
there are times that McCoy’s old school, Serling-esque aesthetic
gets a tad too repetitive and predictable. Most of the time, the
personality and characters save those but there are times,
specifically in the cases of “Stream Scream” and “Regular
Customer”, where the story’s lack of a sense of cohesion or
direction kills the experience.

McCoy
isn’t out to change the world or shock us with his new and
outrageous approach to story telling. His work makes it clear that he
is out to do one thing and one thing only: spin a good yarn. Overall,
despite a few minor missteps, he certainly succeeds with this
collection.

Anton Cancre is one of those rotting, pus-filled thingies on the underside of humanity that your mother always warned you about. He has oozed symbolic word-farms onto the pages of Shroud, Sex and Murder and Horrorbound magazines as well as The Terror at Miskatonic Falls, an upcoming poetry anthology by Shroud Publishing and continues to vomit his oh-so-astute literary opinions, random thoughts and nonsense at antoncancre.blogspot.com. No, he won't babysit you pet shoggoth this weekend. Stop asking.

Saturday, June 9, 2012

The Wicked, by James Newman, is a frightfully fun exercise in classic eighties horror. The pacing is excellent, all the time-honored elements are there - evil comes to a small town, preying on vulnerable sensibilities, trying to become "flesh" - but most importantly, it's so very well written. The prose is lean, the characterization rings true and even at 325 pages, the story moves like a dragster fueled by the fires of Hell.

David, Kate and Becca Little moved to Morganville, North Carolina in a desperate attempt to start over. After Kate's assault and rape, the Littles are hurting, badly. This may be the only chance they have at saving their family and returning to some sense of normalcy. Especially with Kate's pregnancy looming above them. Because they don't know. Whose child is this? David's?

Or the rapists?

Much worse dangers lurk in the shadowed corners of Morganville, however. Invoked by the fire that destroyed the Heller Home for Children several months before the Littles arrived, an ancient demon has come forth. Its hunger is eternal, and not only does it want to defile and debase and corrupt all human life...

It wants the children. To fuel its unholy fires, and bring it forth from hell. And to defeat it, David must face sacrificing more than just his life...he may have to sacrifice everything he holds dear in this world.

The debate will always rage, one imagines, between those who champion "introspective, literary horror" and those who favor the more visceral sub-genres like splatterpunk and monster fiction (zombies, vampires, etc). And that's the best thing about The Wicked. It's so well written. Boasts a tight narrative that moves well, and there's plenty of regular "life stuff" (regarding Kate's trauma over her rape) for this to be more than just horror.

But it IS horror, at its core. A classic tale of good versus evil, and it's done very well. Also, major credit goes to the publisher, Shock Totem, in the product itself. In a print on demand age when any "Joe" can become a "publisher" and churn out reams of substandard products, not only have they elected to start their novel line with a proven winner in James Newman, but they've knocked this one of out of the park in terms of design. Right town to a little "Totem's Grocery" discount label on the novel's back cover, and those beloved creases of a well-worn paperback.

Kevin Lucia is a Contributing Editor for Shroud Magazine and a blogger for The Midnight Diner. His short fiction has appeared in several anthologies. He's
currently finishing his Creative Writing Masters Degree at
Binghamton University, he teaches high school English and lives
in Castle Creek, New York with his wife and children. He is
the author of Hiram Grange & The Chosen One, Book Four of The Hiram Grange Chronicles, and he's currently working on his first novel. Visit him on the web at www.kevinlucia.com.

George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead spawned legions of movies and books about the animated, lurching, flesh-eating dead. Hailed as a classic by horror fans, cited as foundational by many writers and directors, it could be argued that it changed the landscape of horror cinema dramatically.

John Russo, acclaimed screenwriter, co-wrote the screenplay and also produced two novel versions, Night of the Living Dead and Return of the Living Dead - the latter being the original version, not the version based on Dan O'Bannon's horror comedy.

And now, for the first time in thirty years, both these works are available again in Cemetery Dance's new limited edition collection, Undead. There's nothing overly special about the prose or the stories themselves - they're straight zombie stories: violent, bloody, stripped down and fast-paced, executed adequately - but the addition of the original version of ROTLD makes this a collector's item for lovers of all things zombie, and definitely the right gift for that zombie fan in your life that already has everything.

Kevin Lucia is a Contributing Editor for Shroud Magazine and a blogger for The Midnight Diner. His short fiction has appeared in several anthologies. He's
currently finishing his Creative Writing Masters Degree at
Binghamton University, he teaches high school English and lives
in Castle Creek, New York with his wife and children. He is
the author of Hiram Grange & The Chosen One, Book Four of The Hiram Grange Chronicles, and he's currently working on his first novel. Visit him on the web at www.kevinlucia.com.

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Torn, by award winning author Lee Thomas, is a suspenseful thriller using established horror tropes to give form to our darkest fears. There's plenty of "horror" action here, but it's strengthened by a wrenching emotional subtext that's perhaps darker than any kind of violence, making Torn everything horror fiction should be.

When a little girl is abducted in the small town of Luther's Bend, Sheriff Bill Cranston prepares for the worst. Horrible thoughts of innocence defiled rise unbidden as he and his deputies and other townspeople search through the surrounding forest to find the missing girl, hopefully before irreparable harm is done to her.

What they find instead is a monster. A howling thing straight from nightmare. One of Sheriff Cranston's friends is mauled to death, this thing escapes into the shadows...

And even though young Maggie Mayflower is rescued from the crime scene unharmed, nothing is the same. Because the next day, Douglas Sykes is arrested trying to break into a parked car, naked. Sykes claims to be more than he is, a creature of folklore and legend, of night and shadow. And not only are there others like him on the way...they want him dead.

And they won't let anything get in their way.

Worse, Sykes is getting into Sheriff Cranston's head. Taunting him. Pulling strings thought deeply buried, strings that tug on secrets. Secrets that the insane Sykes claims he can smell coming off Sheriff Cranston. As to why his marriage is crumbling and why his wife Lisa has been descending deeper and deeper into an alcoholic oblivion.

A war is brewing. One, for Luther's Bend. The other? Sheriff Cranston's very being. The essence of who he is.

In many was, Torn is a perfect allegory of the "divided self." Presented to us in the trappings of a classic horror trope, it's not only entertaining, but thought provoking, also. And disturbing, too. Because who is more the monster? The one who has accepted who and what they are, the consequences to others be damned? Or the one who hides in the shadows, refusing to come out into the light of day?

Kevin Lucia is a Contributing Editor for Shroud Magazine and a blogger for The Midnight Diner. His short fiction has appeared in several anthologies. He's
currently finishing his Creative Writing Masters Degree at
Binghamton University, he teaches high school English and lives
in Castle Creek, New York with his wife and children. He is
the author of Hiram Grange & The Chosen One, Book Four of The Hiram Grange Chronicles, and he's currently working on his first novel. Visit him on the web at www.kevinlucia.com.